Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Microreview: THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY OF THE YEAR, VOL 8 - FINAL PART.

Here we are again. I know there has been a large gap since the last part of the
review of this anthology, but that is, well, it's because... that is to
say... look, anthologies take ages to read, okay?!

The
variety of style, subject and entertainment continued as I progressed
through the last ten of Strahan's choices. First off, Benjanun Sriduangkaew's story Fade To Gold returns after its earlier appearence in the superb End of the Road anthology,
also from Solaris, a few months back (also reviewed here on Nerds). Its
melodic, paced and deceptively simple prose follows
soldier-with-a-secret Thidakesorn through the countryside of ancient
Thailand as they encounter a strange, seductive and deadly woman. The
mixture of love and distrust that grows between them as each reveals
their secret is fascinatingly-told and Sriduangkaew's denouement is a beguiling mix of the horrific and romantic. Tainted love in the jungle, with wonderful phrasing.

Selkie Stories Are For Losers
didn't compare in power, sadly coming after such succesful writing. But
that is not to dismiss Sofia Samatar's story purely by comparision; on
its own (and I waited to reread it to be sure of this) it is very
confusing, yet I read both times from start to finish with full
engrossment. It was impossible for me to understand what was going on
aside from the narrator's love for their friend Mona, and a little of
their family history. The story is fragmented and largely in the head of
the protagonist, and the references to either mutants or other species,
or something else, are as vague as they would be if you knew the
backstory. So no awkward exposition to slow the breathless emotion of
the narrator, yet a little backstory might have given the tale a bit
more power. I would love to know what others think however, as I felt
like I was missing something, or perhaps not allowing mystery and
atmosphere to be enough themselves.

The young American
writer An Owomoyela, however, provides both these elements and a plot
and landscape that all work in harmony to deliver In Metal, In Bone.
Benine is a man with the power to experience visions of people's
memories by touching objects. He is summoned to an army camp in the
midst of his civil war-ravaged African nation to 'read' bones collected
from mass graves and battlefields, in order to indentify the dead. I
said plot but really the narrative is sparse, concentrating on a few
moments over the course of the time Benine spends at the camp, before a
wonderfully bleak and profound final page. The interaction between the
four characters and the descriptions of the magical visions are nicely
realised, and I would love to read a full novel from this writer.

Similarly impressive but thousands of miles away in every sense, Eleanor Arnason delivers with Kormak The Lucky
what I found to be the most singularly-enjoyable of all the stories.. I
think... So much of these reviews are down to my mood and what story
came before, that clear subjectivity is hard to achieve. Yet her tale of
an Irish slave dragged into a world of magic, iron beasts and vicious
Elf feuds is, regardless of perspective, enormously entertaining. As
I've stated in earlier parts of these reviews, a lack of what I see as
traditional genre story-telling was disappointing my expectations, so I
was glad to be in a place of hidden tunnels, enchanted metals, ancient
curses, ice-cold queens and so on. Kormak is an interesting mix of
pragmatism and defiance, and his journey from young slave to canny rebel
against his various owners is full of incident and great
world-building, and manages what I think I was yearning for - an ability
to harnish the comforting familiarity of genre tradition with original
ideas and characters.

Sing by Sweden's
Karin Tidbeck is amazing. Set on a distant moon where birdsong replaces
the local's speech when the moon is up (obviously; why wouldn't it?),
Aino is a shy and separate shopkeeper in a small settlement who attracts
the curiosity and then love of a visiting scientist. Tidbeck gently
paints a distant universe of fragmented sub-species of human and space
colonies, without resorting to any 'in year xxxx mankind has conquered
the stars' style of exposition, but unlike other authors in this
collection she gives enough information to support the fictional soil
she puts her characters on. Aino is the sort of quiet, fragile person
you come to root for, and her hidden determination to escape her
crippled form and lonely situation drives us to a satisfying,
fantastical conclusion. Loved it.

I didn't love but did rather like Madeline Ashby's Social Services. It
unfairly suffered in the shadow of early works in the book, as it
adopts similar ideas of inhanced AI and brain-interfering. Lena is a sad
yet committed social worker in a future U.S. where the economy has
collapsed, leaving abandoned housing and drugged teens that Lena visits
in her automated vehicle, whilst her 'Social Service' in her brain gives
her virtual displays of information. As her memory slips, we notice her
relying on this artificial guide, and I sensed all was not right. The
ending is dark and convincing, and left me wanting more, yet the sense
of having been here already never quite left, and Lena doesn't get
enough time or space to make her fate as moving as it perhaps could have
been. Nevertheless, I found a lot to admire and would be keen to read
Ashby's other fiction, free of the comparisions forced by me on it here.

The Road of Needles
has a dark finale too, but Caitlin R. Kiernan keeps us guessing as to
whether it is actually happening or in the disorientated, hallucinating
mind of space pilot Nix, as she struggles with an onboard emergency
whilst recalling her life back home. Her mind slowly warps past and
present, and the ship's computer reveals a virus that stretches her
sanity to the brink. A brilliant yet oblique final cliffhanger frames a
great space thriller. I really cared for Nix and her work-life worries,
and was fascinated by the world in which they and her battle for
survival existed. And a spaceship! Yay!

Nebraska's Robert Reed's Mystic Falls
is a masterpiece of intelligent sci-fi, I think. Hector Borland is sent
back into his own past via his memory to wipe out a sentinent virus
that has hacked everyone's brain (again with these themes of
brain-adaptation and collective AI - it's clearly in fashion). His walk
up to the titular waterfall with the aparition (a beautiful woman
designed to capture human interest and compassion) is full of detailed
narration that gives us the background to this scheme, and the results
of Hector's actions are interesting and complex. I loved the final line
as much as anything in this anthology.

Back to space, well, Mars, for Belfast native Ian McDonald's The Queen of Night's Aria,
a welcome wave of humour and retro sci-fi fantasy. We learn that the
Martian's of Well's War of the Worlds faced a counter-attack from
humanity in the years since (time is confusing - the characters seem
very mid-20th century yet are in a future-feeling world of space
battles), and we follow arrogant and gluttonish Count Jack, a blustering
Irish singer who is caught with his manager, and our narrator, Faisal
in an epic battle whilst performing for human troops near the front. A
mad and wildly-entertaining story follows and the Count finds himself
doing the show of his life. Superb, with great action scenes and witty
dialogue, this is definitely in my top five or so of the collection.

More
of Ireland follows, from Galway resident Van Nolan, who is undoubtably a
fine wordsmith. I tried hard to forget this was the very last story,
and lose myself in former astronaut Dale's interaction with the locals
of the Irish town he has come to spread his comrade's ashes. They go
fishing and go drinking, and Dale tells them of the disaster in orbit
that killed his friend. Gentle and compassionate, yes. Atmospheric and
realistic, yes. Sci-fi or fantasy? No. To finish the collection with yet
another story which, despite its merits, puts the nail in the coffin of
what dissatisfied me with Strahan's choices was a shame for me.

Am
I being too strict? Am I missing subtle elements hinting that the
'normal' I saw was more 'fantastical', the horror more monsterous or the
technology more sci-fi? Surely, yet I am left still with a confusion as
to what science fiction, fantasy and other genres mean to others. I
found other people on Goodreads and elsewhere with the same complaints,
so I'm not alone, but are we all being too traditional?

Please
respond in the comments below with your definitions of 'sci-fi' and
'fantasty', as I would love to hear what you think about these genres
and where their borders lie, and whether they matter. Strahan was searching for the best writing in the genres, the areas, that these writers all work within. He found some incredible writing, some superb tales. Was he however going to far from his intention, stated in his intro, to at least partially honour genre-tradition? And should I care? For now, based on my own prejudices, here is the math...

The MathBaseline Assessment : 8/10

Bonuses : +1 for giving me within its vast collection some of the finest readin moments of the past year and introducing me to a raft of new writers

Penalites : -1 for failing to stick to sci-fi; -1 for failing to stick to fantasy when it wasn't aslo sticking to sci-fi... just basically a general not sticking attitude